Read Books in 15min with Blinkist (and get 50% off)

Ever felt that non-fiction books seem to ramble on and on just to meet a page quota? That the main points could be summarized in five pages or so?

Recently I ran into Blinkist - an app that promises just that - 15-minute summaries of over 1,500 non-fiction books.

First I was a little skeptical - can it really be effective? I tried the 3-day trial and turned into a convert: yes it can.

All the blockbusters seem to be there - in these three days I knocked off my reading list about half a dozen books that, to be honest, I might never have gotten around to read the full versions.

The summaries are quality crafted - they don't seem to be computer generated, are very well structured, and actionable items are highlighted.

In a queue? Waiting for someone to arrive or meeting to start? Whenever you got a couple minutes to spare you can read one chapter, and actually absorb information. Or pick up the premium edition for audio narrations when you are driving or similar.

In the end, you can decide if you want to buy the book for the in-depth version if you feel there's merit to it. In my case, I feel that most of the time enough information was in the condensed version.

Scouting around the web I found a little-advertised coupon for 50% off that actually works which I'm sharing with you: put lucky50 on the checkout page for half off in any of the plans.

Agree, but partially. There's also the factor I mentioned that people tend to get a succint concept and fill it with fluff to pad word count until they have something they can market it as a book.

Third point is our attention economy: our time is valuable, and more content is created every minute that we can possible evaluate, much less consume. How can you tell what is worth your detailed, deep attention span? One way is read a few summaries and pick only the one that shows more potential.

I think the draw of this service is partially due to these three points.

Agreed. I remember when I was in my teens, I used to read all the time. I would sit for hours with my head stuck in a book, and get annoyed when I had stop to use the toilet or eat! Now, my mind is always wandering. The internet, as much as I love it, is partly to blame. There's just so much to see and do on it.

I do also agree that many books are fluffed up, so to speak, in order to meet publisher word counts. I know this happens in the publishing industry.